Once upon a boat
by Harmen
Summary: Elvisch survival horror! R&R! Been up here long, will update soon! Want reviews! Thank you!
1. The letter

Disclaimer: I do not own, high elfs, Dark Elves, Druchii, etc. It all belongs to games workshop... duh.

A/N: I may have made some mistakes about the high elf navy, I don't know much about it.

Asirnil lifted the feather from the parchment. Planning his route this carefully was hardly nessesary. This because his ship was on supplementary patrol duty. Personally Asirnil thought it to be a waste of labour to dedicate a hawkship to this task. A hawkship is much to big to float about idly. Patrolling these waters is usually a vacation to the crew, but on a Hawkship there is stress even with the sails down. Asirnil could guess why he was issued this wastefull task. A childhood "aquaintance" of his succesfully climbed the Ulthuan naval ladder, quite high. He used to be a part of a group of boys who used to call themselves dark kin and haressed everyone in town, including Asirnil. Off course he grew out of it, and now everyone remembers his juvenile record with a smile on their face, saying: "Who could ever have dreamed he'd grow up to be such a wise man!" Outgrowing his old opinions, and voluntarily "rejoining" High Elf society made him an early adult and a objective commander. Except in the case of the boy who didn't heartily accept him as a member of the village community when he symbolicly burned his Druchii-wannabe outfit. An Elf so important to the face of the Ulthuan fleet could easily get away with a prank like this. And because of it, Asirnil was now bored while his men were working their backs in a loop over nothing.

A knock at the door.

"Yes?"

" News from the regulars, Captain Silkhaft."

The letter was a call for assistance. Appearently a Druchii ship had sailed this region for a few hours, when they were seen. The Druchii followed the ship that spot them, but made no move to intercept. Instead they just followed the ship.

While Asirnil read, the paige that brought the letter in carried a pigeon inside. Asirnil looked up critically as he fumbled around with the pigeon trying to avoid its beak while placing the creature on a pedestal with a cup of birdseed next to it.

The letter went on about how the ship navigated towards a confrontation with multiple ships, each as large as it. Appearently, the single ship was well prepared, and had planned for just this to happen, as suddenly multiple small groups of harpies were sent at the High Elf ships. Instead of the usual haressment tactics these harpies were somehow well under controll, enough so to send them directly at the ships' crow's nests. A closer look had revealed a magically flying beastmaster, or apprentice, had been assigned to each harpy flock. With their nests unmanned and the ships largest speculums wrecked they lost track of the small ship. Over the next two hours four of these ships were sunk by a seadragon. The small fleet quickly dispersed. The smaller ships were not equipped for a task such as this. They needed the Depthstrider's heavier armaments to deal with this creature. The nimble Dark Elf ship would otherwise easily be able to seek out any ship in the fecinity and send its Leviathan at it. They contemplated some more on how strange it was for such a small ship to carry so many mages beastmasters and harpies, and stated their location; several sea-miles off the western coast of the Shifting Islands.

Captain Asirnil Silkhaft was glad he had no time to brood on his superior's rotten luck.

"Tell Charistal we set sail for the Shifting Isles."

"Yes my captain." The young elf, Asirnil couldn't quite recall his name, said with a whinish undertone.

Clearly he was not happy with the news.

"And right he is." Asirnil thought out loud. The fastest way to the Shifting Islands was through a hot sea-current. They would need a lot of tiring maneuvres if wanted to go in as straight a line as possible. At least now planning his route carefully would be worthwhile, allowing him to forget his boredom until they arrived.

But first he would get some air. He could tell the rumours about his orders were spreading already. Of course everyone stopped talking when Asirnil walked by, but you could still tell. On the front deck however there was some restlessness. As he stepped on deck he could have slapped himslef in the face for not guessing what the problem was beforehand. Someone was sick again. He stepped up behind the group of nursing sailors and asked what the problem was. Immediately they all saluted and informed their captain the man collapsed on the floor was sick. They let Asirnil pass and he immediately saw that in fact, that was a very accurate diagnosis. The man was green and his nose, ears, fingers, wrists and many other body parts were swollen to Orc size.

"How did this happen? Did he eat something strange?"

"He ate first with regards to his night duty tomorrow, he had a really tight food chedule to keep him from starving during his night shift tomorrow. And then the new guy that got flown in by eagle yesterday made him a half orc."

"I shall be the one to judge his competence, thank you sailor."

The men innediately renewed their tension. Among them was the boy with the pigeon fear.

"I seem to have forgotten your name, what was it again?" Asirnil asked alertly, in order to make sure everyone realised he knew of everything that was going on.

"Lomenas Surrodan Captain." He said slightly surprised at the captain personal interest.

"Fetch our new cook. I'd like to have a word with him in my office." With that both Surrodan and Asirnil left the upper deck. Leaving the others to get barked at by the second mate who needed them to re-ty the sails so they would survive the heavy manouvring they would have to do.

He started to walk for his cabin. He was just starting to mutter about patroll ships never sending any letters, only when they need something killed, when one of his crewmen caught his attention. It was the cook's assistant, Pollo. Such a short name was unusual for an elf, but he didn't need a longer one. Pollo was the only accurate discription of Pollo. Pollo smiled, he seemed very content with himself. 'I'm going to score points with the captain!' Asirnil heard him think.

"Lucky break Captain! With the change of course and all, tonight we might be able to give the boys a little extra! I found some extra meat, maybe from a previous journey? I can't tell how old it is, but it's well salted! And I'm positive it hasn't gone stale!"

"You know I'm not feeding my men food you found somewhere. It could be anything! But, the men would like an extra... take me there, I'll see for myself."

Pollo walked ahead of Asirnil towards the kitchen. It was at these times that Asirnil most aware of Pollo's 'condition'. Of course Pollo calling Asirnil captain never felt right to Silkhaft. It was his brother after all. Pollo had probably forgotten.

Arriving in the kitchen the head of the ship was met with a disgusting stench. Pollo didn't seem to mind. He pushed forward a large barrel. In it was a large barrel with finely schred strips of meat. White with salt. As the barrel closed in on Asirnil he could smell were the stench came from.

"Pollo. The contents of that barrel are not suited for elven consumption. We can't eat it. Neither can you. Throw it away."

"But, we could marin..." "No. No eating from this barrel." "just cook it for a few hours..."

"Sir!"

"Or mix it in the Soup!"

"Pollo! Quiet. What is it Lomenas?" The youngster was pale. Finally Pollo stopped rambling. He did remember his experiences with sick people.

" At the kitchen, I'd come straigth here but I didn't know and I could've already told you, but I can hardly say it in my brain. It stuck inside my eye!"

" Calm down, and tell me in one short sentence what has exectly happened, nothing more, nothing less."

The Surrodan boy, although a boy he was already taller than Asirnil, took a deep breath with his eyes closed. Muttering some Asirnil couldn't here. Then he looked up.

" The cook killed himself."


	2. The Scream

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N, Here chapter two... Does everyone hate my title, or is it because I didn't say R&R? Anyway, R&R!

Asirnil Silkhaft feel his bottom-right eyelid twitching.

"Where is he?"

Lomenas Surrodan gripped his hands together and stared at the floor.

"The mess hall... Sir...!"

Gripping the swabby by the shoulder Asirnil told him to inform the first mate, and the first mate only, about the ship's cookless state, and that Asirnil had given him an hour off. With that captain Silkhaft whistled for his brother to follow him and made his way towards the mess hall.

Carefully Asirnil pushed the door open. The moment the full picture reached his brain he gripped his brother by the chest to keep him back, while his eyes stretched open while he wanted to close them, causing na nasty twitch.

Logically someone comitting suicide would not make such a mess. He knew. Putting more weight behind the arm keeping a very curious Pollo behind the door he thought that maybe his new cook was murdered. Staring sternly into Pollo's eyes, and then pushing him he was able to close and lock the door.

Again the twitch in his right eyelid. Sighing he took in the image. The elf was hugging his waist, his left hand open with a knife in it. He lay in a puddle of blood, both his wrists cut. The entire right half of the mess hal was red with blood. He had sprayed his blood around the around the chamber like a madman.

Asirnil had seen enough. Gently he opened the door and stepped out of the room, planning his speech to calm the men. Most likely the rumours had already turned them into a mutinous mob, so he had to officially tell them the news before they started talking about him ignoring the loss of a beloved colleague. He had barely set a foot across the threshold when Pollo stormed past him, curious of what was hidden in the mess hall.

Asirnil sighed. At that moment he heard a mournfull scream behind him. Pollo could also reconise death. He closed the door and walked up to his office.

Half an hour later

Asirnil had almost fully planned his speech, structurally that is. He would suggest his cook didn't have the courage to face the Druchii's monsters, that he was a symbol of their struggle and a warning of how it happens if we don't use our fears and angers against the Dark kin. If he could place some pretty words around it it just might become something nice.

Pretty words were never his strongpoint however, he preferred the snappy barking of orders, and in more sensitive situations he'd do the same and call it "to the point". Occasionally he'd need to produce a really good speech, but once he was high up in the ranks enough to do speeching he had enough time to read books and steal sentences from them. And so that was what he'd do now. To... something, to get up he eyed his book case from behind his desk. He'd read most of them, but none were really handy in this macabre a situation.

He got up and checked his case form up close, his bookcase was expanded at every port. He just ordered a dozen of books from the preferred genre –usually one of the many knightly-ish genres- and turned in a list of those he already had. That way he would have more or less differently written books on his shelves. He picked out the grimmest looking one. Which wasn't very hard. Not that the book was very different from the others, but the author's name was accentuated with the silverlined silhouette of a scimitar, instead of something knightly-shiny. By Hadow Silverblade, "It was death." It was a very new book, he could tell by the smell, or rather the lack of it . Holding it against his leg, as if he were to carry it a long distance Asirnil walked to his desk. He sat down and opened it. On the first page there was the title and author again.

A sudden cloudbreak, or something, made the room much lighter all of a sudden. He looked up, and saw the Surrodan boy's face in the window. Lomenas was startled, Asirnil nodded his head in an unmistakeble "come in".

"I was just going to thank you for giving me this time off, sir, and I wanted to use my last few minutes of it to tell you that. Sir!"

"The half hour ended three quarters ago."

"Yes, that's true. Sir. I also had to tell you that Arinal is still... growing." There was a strange kind of accent on the word growing. The young elf seemed to prefer not calling unapealling things by their rightfull name. He wanted to tell Asirnil the sick sailor was still getting more bloated by the minute, but chose to disguise it as something less appetite-spoiling.

"Sigh. Get back to work son."

Without a word Lomenas left the room. Trying to focus on his speech Depthstrider's captain turned the page on his book. On it was a more or less skillfully done drawing of a barrel, full of flat slabs, or steaks, chunks of meat, maybe even really small watermelons. Next to it was a bucket of sand or salt, maybe even gunpowder. Probably the barrel was supposed to contain meat, and the bucket held salt. Asirnil had no clue why that picture was there. Over his cabin he heard some mutterings, on deck they would probably be quite loud. He looked up as if expecting to see something trough the thick wooden ceiling. The next moment thre sounded a penetrating siren, a scream piercing through wood and bone alike. It almost sounded like Pollo, except for the high pitch, Pollo would cough his lungs out it he screamed like that.

Garildion the first mate walked in to inform the captain the situation was already under controll. He had sent out a man to investigate, while everyone else was kept busy keeping the captain comfortable in these theacherous currents.

A second scream went from the hull to the crow's nest.

Asirnil decided to take investigate personally, despite Garildion's excellent situation assessment capabilities.


	3. Observation

Disclaimer. I own nothing.

Author's note: I'll update faster from now on… I have some more stuff planned so I can go on for another while.

Together with Garildion and a few bodyguards Asirnil made his way to the bottom of the ship.

Opening the door Asirnil immediately drew the following conclusion:

These men did not kill themselves.

Unlike the kitchen, this place was not sprayed in blood, neither was it as clean before the event, making the mess less noticable. Asirnil's stomach appreciated that.

The first of the two to die lay in the middle of the room. His legs spread and an arrow protruding from his behind. It would have been funny if the floor wasn't brown with crusted blood.

The second elf was positioned unhealthily one the stairs. His head was cleaved with a large axe, and the axe was partially imbedded in the wooden stairs keeping the head in place while the legs tripped over the it.

Needless to say these losses were a great threat to the sailor's loyalty. If a suicide was demoralising, a serial killer on board was extremely much so. Not to mention the rumours of attaking Dark Elves. He'd even heard one of the sailors whisper the name Tullaris on occasions.

"Looks like I'll have to start over with my speech," Asirnil sighed. Garildion looked at him in disbelief, then nodded.

"How do we deal with this sir?"

"Let no-one walk the ship alone, always in groups of three. One potential murderer and two to fight him off. The mission is more important. A serial killer can only kill so many… A sea dragon can take down hunderds. In the mean time, keep us on course."

The men exited the room. Asirnil looked back one last time. Taking the room with him in his mind. When he closed the door the room was still there. Especcially the blood. In the kitchen it had been fresh. Red. Here the blood had already thickened and had turned a dirty brown. Although not as stomachtwisting a sight as the site of the cook's butchering, something kept Asirnil focused on the blood…

"Garildion!"

Captain Silkhaft stared his inferior straight in the eyes. His pupils like dish-plates.

"Yes, captain."

"The blood of the man on the floor, has already crusted."

Not knowing what to do with this information Garildion just looked back.

" We heard the first scream fifteen minutes ago… How fast does blood crust?"

"He would have died hours ago… So… When did he scream?"

" No Garildion, the real question is…"

"Who screamed? Sir…"

"These men were lured in here, they could have died whenever. The killer could have been a passerby hours after the first murder occurred."

"That is a frightening idea my captain."

"Astounding observation… Furthermore… How do you shoot an arrow into some-one's buttocks, not to mention from the bottom up. There was no hole in the floor, no signs of a struggle. That is a frightening idea indeed. Make certain it doesn't reach the crew."

"I'll take these men as my personal bodyguard."

"Good. Tell everyone to move around in groups of three. I'll have at least a few hours until the first boys start breaking the rule. By then I'll have a speech and further steps of action ready."

With that they parted. No-one commenting the captains breaking of his own rules by not taking any with him.

Back in his office Asirnil sat himself on the floor and put his head in his hands. The cook was also murdered, so that makes three. Three men dead in one day. Could that psycho have picked a more stressing time to start killing people. Off to fight Dark Elves, moving through the most treacherous ocean current around Ulthuan… Dark Elves… An assasin? No victims, no chance to scream for yourself, laying traps, one ship with sorceresses, harpies and beastmasters on it… An assasin fit in perfectly.

Being the only ship availeble with the power to take down that leviathan, disrupting us would cripple this region's sea defense, allowing a fleet to manouvre around these waters unhindered, except by the water itself.

First priority: inform and re-organise the crew. They needed to be aware of the dangers. But not too aware, he had no proof of a Dark Elf assasin on board… Asirnil had no intention of scaring them further without knowing what was going on exactly. Re-organise them to work out the problems of always being in groups of three.

He lifted himself to his desk. His eyes dropped to the book he'd last looked into. It lay open on the page with the barrel drawing. He picked another book from his drawer of more regularly exploited literature and slammed it open on top of the exalted sketchbook. His speech wouldn't need to be very encouraging, he would just make clear that everyone has to be very carefull, and he'd explain how to deal with this menace, after he found out himself of course.


End file.
